Several months of mass protests in Sudan have succeeded in ousting the thirty-year presidency of Omar Al Bashir and gaining significant international attention, with a Transitional Military Council now in place comprised of many leading officials from Bashir’s government. With negotiations between protesters and the council stalling, and with the council itself divided between military officials and the leadership of independent militias such as the Janjaweed, the country appears to be growing only more divided as the threat of state collapse and possibly open civil war looms. For the leaders of the protest movement, the future of the country largely remains in their hands – namely in how they proceed to deal with the military council and whether they can reach an accommodation. By continuing on their current path – making somewhat unrealistic demands for an immediate transfer to civilian government – a protracted conflict and the eventual quashing of hopes for reform are effectively guaranteed. An understanding of the current threats to national security, the nature of the external actors which have interests in seeing certain outcomes from a transition of power in Sudan, and the broader national interest, are all vital for the protest movement to move forward and reach an accord with the Military Council for the benefit of both parties.

It is critical to understand that the military has legitimate concerns, both for national security and for their personal security, which must be addressed if any sort of agreement can be reached. For officials personally, amnesty from trial for actions which a new republican government may term crimes against the state committed under the Bashir presidency and since remains essential to them reaching any agreement. This is critical for both the military themselves, and the leadership of the Janjaweed (Rapid Support Forces) and paramilitary forces responsible for the killings in Darfur and what is today South Sudan. By threatening these individuals with trial, and very likely imprisonment, execution and a repossession of their assets, the protesters are ensuring that these powerful individuals will be forced to employ all means at their disposal to prevent any sort of transition of power – which they will equate with an imminent threat to their own and their families’ personal survival.

Regarding national security concerns, officials in the military and intelligence will naturally be weary that the coming to power of a republican government based on a Western style system will lead to a serious undermining of the state’s security apparatus, even if temporary, which will leave the state vulnerable to external intervention by hostile states outside the country. States with their eye on Sudan’s resources, which would likely seek to exploit the deposing of the security forces and coming to power of an inexperienced civilian government, are many. Foremost among these are the Western Bloc states – namely Western European powers and the United States – which have for decades benefitted from fostering instability and division within the country. Admittedly, the policies of the Nimeiri and Bashir governments took few measures to counter Western attempts to foster separatism and foment armed rebellion in the country. Sudanese security officials and the former president have repeatedly alluded to the Western Bloc’s aspirations to “split Sudan into five countries,” all weak states and dependencies on the Western Bloc which are beholden to Europe and the United States in their foreign policymaking. Given both Western actions against the Sudanese state in previous decades, including the alleged backing of militants in Darfur and South Sudan which, due to improper and overly heavy-handed responses by the government in Khartoum sparked major conflicts, and considerable Western support for protests today, it is evident that the Western Bloc seeks an undermining of the Sudanese state through the grievances of the protestors. From messages of solidarity from Google executives, to vocal support from officials such as President Donald Trump’s National Security Adviser John Bolton, strong comparisons are drawn to the Libyan protests of 2011, the Umbrella Revolution and Tiananmen Square incident among other examples. While the latter two failed to cripple the Chinese state as their sponsors desired, the devastating results for neighboring Libya which saw thousands of Sudanese workers brutally executed by Western backed militias are evident. The government in Khartoum appears considerably more fragile than even Tripoli did at that time, much less Beijing, which makes the Western threat particularly dire.

The second threat comes from Egypt in the north, which not only occupies a part of Sudanese territory the size of Slovenia or Israel in the Hala’ib triangle, but has also long perceived its former colony and its people with some degree of contempt and sought to assert its authority to shape Sudan into part of its sphere of influence. Access to the Sudanese resource base on favorable terms is also considered a potentially invaluable lifeline for the struggling Egyptian economy, which suffers the effects of endemic corruption, environmental decline and serious overpopulation due to uncontrolled growth. For all its faults, the Omar Al Bashir government strongly denounced Egyptian meddling in Sudan’s internal affairs, its occupation and more recent exploration for fossil fuels in the Hala’ib triangle, and its demands that Khartoum alter its foreign policy to align with Egyptian interests. Egypt seeks to engineer the coming to power of a government, whether republican or military, which is weak enough that it need comply with Cairo’s demands – whether in foreign policy, in economic concessions or in acquiescence to Egyptian territorial claims. Egypt’s strong support for the Transitional Military Council, where Arab Gulf States have supported the power of various militias in particular the Janjaweed, indicates that Cairo seeks a stable dependency in Sudan.

The Arab Gulf States for their part, namely Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, have a primary interest in ensuring continued Sudanese participation in their ongoing war effort against Iranian backed Ansurullah coalition forces in Yemen. Sudanese forces have taken the bulk of casualties against coalition units in Yemen, and formed a valuable frontline which has shielded the casualty averse gulf troops from attack. Attesting to the importance of the Sudanese presence to the war effort, a member of a Sudanese contingent in Yemen, Mohamed Suleiman al-Fadil stated in a recent interview with the New York Times: “Without us (Sudanese forces), the Houthis would take all of Saudi Arabia, including Mecca.” Gulf states have in turn provided considerable economic assistance aimed at propping up the Military Council and in particular its deputy leader Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo – commander of Janjaweed forces. As pressure from the protests continues to grow, the Military Council’s reliance on assistance from the Gulf and resulting weakness and lack of independence will only grow.

Ultimately the protest movement in Sudan must recognize that by setting unreasonable demands and working against rather than seeking to cooperate with the government, the state overall is weakened which benefits only external powers. The three factions which today strive for power, the militias led by the Janjaweed, the military and the protestors, are all increasingly forced into a greater dependency on their external sponsors – the Arab Gulf States, Egypt and the Western Bloc respectively. As the parties continue to weaken one another through conflict, this ensures that whichever triumphs it will be a considerably weaker and less sovereign government than that of Omar Al Bashir which preceded it – which for all its faults remained largely independent in its foreign policymaking.

Should the protest movement proceed on its current trajectory, all three parties will continue to be weakened and the serious undermining or collapse of Sudanese statehood for the interest of external powers will become a real possibility. It is thus in the interests of both the nation and the protest movement to propose more reasonable terms to the military council which can unify the interests of both parties for the sake of the national interest. This can include formation of a transitional council comprised of a balance of military officials and civilian leaders selected by the protest movement – perhaps in an assembly with 55:45 representation. Demands must be not for the ousting and punishment of officials, which remain wholly unacceptable, but rather for the reform of the state to better suit national interests. A joint military-civilian government which prioritizes the protection of national sovereignty, economic and military modernization, and the protection of the rights of all ethnic groups, remains a viable alternative to protracted and seemingly unending conflict. The latter point remans particularly vital, given the use of ethnic conflict by the Western Bloc to undermine the state and the alienation of many parts of the country from the political process by the Omar Al Bashir government which increased polarization and fueled separatist sentiments. An enshrined equality for these groups, and guaranteed representation in whatever council or assembly governs the state, will be key to reducing chances of civil war and undermining Western efforts to support separatism. (A similar approach was taken by Indonesian revolutionary forces in 1945, and guaranteed participation in the political process and parliamentary representation for all ethnic groups was key to undermining Western efforts to foster division and recolonize the country.)

Finally, it is important for the protest movement not to assume that the only alternative to the corruption and stagnation of the Omar Al Bashir and Gaafar Nimeiry years is a Western style liberal democracy. States which pursue such a course in an atmosphere of serious national security threats and from a position of economic underdevelopment have almost without exception failed – with often severe consequences. A progressive and nationalist party state or military government, however, poses a far more viable alternative. The Chinese CCP, DPRK’s Worker’s Party, South Korea’s Park Chung Hee military government, Singapore’s Lee Kwan Yew military government and Taiwan’s Jiang Jieshi and Jiang Jing Kuo military governments are all prime examples, some of the few, of third world states which have managed to quickly modernize and progress while retaining sovereignty and self-determination despite considerable national security threats. The writer suggests that it is by looking to these examples, and certainly not to the Western Bloc whose models have provided repeated failure and whose policies towards Sudan are demonstrably hostile, that a brighter, more secure and more prosperous future for the Sudanese state can be achieved.

Aspelta is a former resident of Sudan (2018) writing under pseudonym. Well known defence and security analyst with over 900 publications widely cited in over a dozen languages. Expert on international politics specialising in East Asia and U.S. foreign policy.

The outspoken Palestinian poet Nahida Izzat has been an inspiration for a growing number of people. This fact has been a great concern for both Zionists and the so-called ‘anti.’ I have been witnessing the campaign against Nahida for over 10 years. In recent days the desperate attempts to silence Nahida have intensified. I spoke with Nahida about her life and her battle for truth. I urge you to listen to the spectacularly lucid voice of an heroic exiled poet.

Gilad Atzmon: Recently FB has both suspended you at least once a day and then lifted your suspension a few hours later after reviewing your appeal. It seems that someone is desperate to silence you. What are your feelings about this, and why do you think it’s happening?

Nahida Izzat: That is true, Gilad. In the past, my account was suspended and my posts/comments deleted. To have my account reinstated, FB asked me to provide documentation (A copy of 2 of these items: Passport, Birth Certificate, Driver’s License, or Bank Account) to prove my identity and that my account is not a fake.

This time around, I have been subjected to harassment on an almost daily basis, receiving notice that a post of mine “goes against FB Community Standards” of “Hate Speech”. I have protested immediately each time and requested a review, a few hours later I receive an apology from FB for their mistake in suspending my account and they have lifted the ban.

Whoever is reporting me recently has been trying desperately to find an excuse to silence me for being one of the most outspoken Palestinian voices in the West, daring to step outside the red line and break the “boundaries” as defined to us by the self-appointed gatekeepers in the Palestinian support movement.

Some years ago, and like yourself, I experienced some real harassment and attempted censorship by no other than the Jewish anti-Zionist ‘supporters’ in the movement, those to whom I had given my trust after working closely with them for many years. They did this to me because I dared delve into the ‘forbidden’ topics they deemed taboo, and I stepped out of the boundaries they set as they claimed that anything beyond their boundaries was not ‘permissible’ in the discourse of the Palestinian struggle. They used the same accusation they use now of “antisemitism” to stop me from writing and to stop my writing from being published online.

Some years ago, I identified some of the subjects they deem impermissible, including:

The doctrine of Jewish supremacy, (chosenness) and its role in Palestine Struggle and the ramifications it has had on Palestinian lives and on their destruction;

The global Jewish Zionist network which functions as the international blood line that has enabled the continuous survival of the Jewish state;

The veneration of the holocaust as an article of faith rather than a chapter in history, and the implications of that for the Palestinian struggle for liberation; and

The concealment of False Flag operations perpetrated by Mossad and the intentions and role of both the concealment and the operations themselves in the destruction of much of the Middle East.

All efforts to silence my roaring Palestinian voice have come to naught. In fact, such efforts had the opposite effect. Instead of my having a voice that faintly echoes from a small city in the UK, their attempts to silence me have helped me raise the volume, so that my voice is propelled far and wide.

I see what is happening on FB now as deja vu, once again one or more people are out there desperately trying to smother an authentic, free and untamed Palestinian voice and to incarcerate an independent thinking mind by clutching a straw, building a castle on quicksand or throwing a handkerchief in people’s eyes to stop daylight from breaking through.

GA: While in the early days it seemed as if it was Zionists and Israeli stooges who were interfering with our intellectual work, now it is established that Anti Zionist Jews are way more active on that front. What is your explanation?

NI: Zionist hawks are not interested in playing in a mind field, they prefer to play with bombs, bullets and minefields. Their interest is in totally eliminating their enemy. By contrast, anti-Zionist ‘doves’ wave the banners of morality and universal values, it isn’t befitting to their moralist role to play with guns, so they focus on the mind field. But their arguments are feeble and cannot stand the heat of truth, the goals of their game evolve into working to spin and conceal truth for as long as possible, hoping that in their end game they can bury truth forever in the dungeon of “hate speech” locking it with the “antisemitism” and “holocaust denial” keys.

What these poor souls fail to see is that truth has an innate irrepressible light that can never be extinguished by their blows.

GA: What should be the role of anti Zionist Jews?

NI: If anti Zionist Jews are to be truthful with Palestinians, with our supporters and with themselves, all their energy, all their sincerity and all their might must turn inside out. They will have to turn over and look within. They should focus on diagnosing the root causes of the problem not, as they have insisted upon, merely describing the symptoms. Looking within is a huge undertaking, it requires a long and agonising journey within the self. I dare to suggest as a first step in this monumental task, that they approach it with honesty and sincerity not the avoidance and concealment we have seen.

The heart of the problem and the root cause of the Palestinian Nakba lies in the demon of ‘chosenness’, i.e ideological Jewish supremacy as manifested in their innumerable texts that separate Jews from ‘gentiles’ and puts them not merely miles apart, over and above the rest of mankind, but places them within a totally different paradigm, with different histories, terminology and perception of the world, themselves, and the outside world. Without an end to this separation there can never be a true solution in which we achieve a workable, egalitarian, fair and humanistic world with universal values that apply to all.

In order for their self-chosen, self imposed separation to end, they must take a hard and honest look at the core issue, the elephant in the room, that which no one dares to name, ‘chosenness.’

They must examine why they feel the need to conceal this issue.

They need to discover why they ‘freak out’ and behave irrationally at the mention of this word.

They need to ask themselves the difficult questions:

Why do they feel entitled to control the terminology that defines what is good for mankind and why do they believe no one else can?

Why do they feel that their narrative is the one and only possible narrative?

Why do they believe that their own suffering supersedes that of others?

What is it that terrifies them when they feel they have no control in making the rules?

How do they demand that Palestinians be thoughtful of Jewish sensitivities, Jewish security and the Jewish future all while the Palestinians are being maimed, tortured and slaughtered?

Why do they expect Palestinians to consider the welfare, security and future well being of the Jewish ‘Israelis’ who are slaughtering them and bombing their society to smithereens?

What is it that makes them feel entitled to expect Palestinians to give up on their inalienable rights of liberation, land ownership and sovereignty for the sake of the same people who have been robbing and destroying these rights for seven decades?

If they are able to manage a mile or two of honestly exploring these questions then they can move on to scrutinize and dissect the four boundaries that they have set for themselves and others that are listed above.

GA: Three days ago we were shocked to see an abusive and patronising post by the pro Palestinian Israeli activist Abigail Abarbanel. She has accused you of antisemitism and racism for publishing primary sources of Judaic texts.Abarbanel wrote of you that you “can be clumsy”, “bitterness has always been there in Nahida’s poetry, “she posted blatantly racist comments”, ” Nahida does not have good emotional regulation. She can be out of control and expresses incredibly racist views against Jews”, “she seems unable to differentiate between her anger with the state of Israel/Zionism and what it has been doing to her people, and maligning the entire Jewish people for it”, she “expresses racist views against Jews in general, not just share specific examples of Jewish racism..” etc. How does it feel when an Israeli who claims to be a supporter of your cause refers to you as ‘clumsy’ and ‘racist’?

NI: Ok, how it feels! Even though she has published some nasty stuff about me, I do not feel anger, hostility or hate toward her. I‘ve never met her personally, and on a human level I feel sorry for her, for her inability to empathise with others when her sensitivities are rubbed. I feel sorry for her inability to see beyond the bubble of tribalism she has chosen to dwell within. I feel sorry for her belief that she has mastered all there is to morality and humanity; when she goes out of her way to smear a fellow human being for the ‘sin’ of relying upon and quoting Jewish sources to provide evidence of ideological racism and supremacy and for asking her to challenge her own belief in supremacy.

I feel sorry for her for thinking she has healed the wounds of childhood abuse inflicted upon her by her family members and by her tribe even as they indulged in mass scale abuse of an entire people, although she is incapable of touching the infected core of the problem.

I am sorry to witness her fall as she swims out of her depth and lashes out at a concerned ‘outsider’ who has put a finger where it really hurts in the hope that if a correct diagnosis and attention to a cure is given, healing may occur.

On the collective humanist non-personal level, I experience deep pain from the ugliness of her betrayal of a people she claims to support. I grieve as a witness to her failure, watching as she faced a choice between blind loyalty to a tribe and the truth and made the wrong choice.

GA: Years ago both of us were portrayed as lone voices with marginal followings, nowadays things have turned around. All over Europe people are expressing fatigue with Zionist power over Western politics, culture, media, etc. We are facing a shift in mass consciousness. Does this change translate into hope?

NI: Absolutely.

As a witness to so many changes in the short time over the past decade, and as an observer of the grave upheaval raging all around, destabilising major political systems, shifting and shoveling global powers, one cannot fail to see the meaning of “everything is in flux!” Change is a law of the universe.

And watching Zionists and anti-Zionists alike, of all shades, colours and persuasions stuck in an ever shrinking narrowing field in the battle of ideas, with no weapons in their hands other than ad hominem attacks and laughable accusations of ‘antisemitism’, I have no doubt that they are slowly but surely losing the battles of the mind and the soul.

As witness to all this, I feel resolve, confidence and resilience from within, filling me with all the hope, energy and fortitude needed to persist. As a person of faith, a believer in the existence of a Supreme Intelligence with Most High Principles, Ultimate Justice and Sublime Love, I feel this energy invigorating me and giving me even more power and the determination to continue roaring with passion for the sake of truth, justice and humanity.

The International Jerusalem Day is commemorated this year amid the unceasing US-Zionist plots against Arab people, especially after the US President’s acknowledgment of Jerusalem as capital of the Zionist entity and the declaration of annexing Golan to the occupying entity.

Many rallies were held yesterday in Syrian, Iranian cities and other parts of the world to mark the International Jerusalem Day and express solidarity with the Palestinian people to support Palestinians who are facing the dangerous prospect of a sellout of their rights through a notorious US plan called the “deal of the century”.

The rallies were an opportunity to reject US President Donald Trump’s ill-famed plan and a summit due to be held in Bahrain later this month to market the US project. In Damascus, a huge rally was held in Souk al-Hamidiyeh with the participation of scores of intellectuals and representatives of Palestinian resistance movements. The participants affirmed that Palestinians, Arab and Muslim people will not sell Jerusalem and will work for the liberation of the city soon.

The participants hailed the great sacrifices offered by the Palestinian people in confrontation of the racist oppressive measures taken by the Zionist occupation forces against them. They emphasized that the Palestinian Cause will ever remain the central cause of the Arab people as Palestine is the heart of the nation and its compass and the eternal capital of Palestine. They also expressed appreciation for the stances of the Syrian leadership and people in support of the Palestinian cause, calling for a popular Islamic stand against the puppet regimes to push them to adopt decisions compatible with the aspirations of their peoples.

They slammed the international community’s silence in the face of Israel’s attempts to Judaize the occupied Palestinian lands and destroy the historical Palestinian identity, calling on regional and global organizations to take serious and practical measures to counter the Zionist regime’s plots.

The demonstrators also condemned the Tel Aviv regime’s attempts to Judaize the occupied territories and destroy Palestine’s national and historical identity, referring that the Zionist regime aims at changing the geographic and demographic status of the occupied Palestinian territories through speeding up the construction of Jewish settlements on confiscated Palestinian lands. They called on international and regional institutions to help foil Israel’s dangerous plot by taking firm and practical measures to curb Israel’s sinister settlement policy.

The demonstrators stressed that the US-devised “deal of century” will definitely end in failure and the so-called Manamah economic conference will not make the Palestinians sell out their inalienable rights. The Trump administration seeks to use the Bahrain meeting to bring Arab states traditionally opposed to the Israeli occupation of Palestinians lands into line.

The holy occupied city of Jerusalem belongs to Palestine and the Palestinians. Neither the United States nor the Israeli regime can make decisions about it. Jerusalem is neither America’s to give away nor Israel’s to take. This city belongs to Palestine & Palestinians. History shows that whoever ignores this is condemned to humiliating failure.

Palestine will remain the compass, and Jerusalem is our soul and identity, and it will remain our inspiration today and tomorrow. The Arabs cannot exist without resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict in a manner that guarantees their dignity and future.

International Jerusalem Day was first marked in 1979 to express solidarity with the Palestinian people in the face of the Israeli occupation entity and its Judaization policy in Jerusalem, especially the construction of Jewish settlements around the city to wipe out the Arab Islamic features of Jerusalem and replace them with Jewish ones with the aim of perpetuation the Israeli occupation of the city.

As we mark this anniversary, we should highlight the important role of the resistance axis in confronting the Zionist occupation and the US colonialist plans.

The liberation of Jerusalem from the clutches of the Israeli regime is the top priority of the Arab and Muslim people. Any scheme meant to distract the Muslims’ public opinion from the Palestinian cause should be denounced.

The International Jerusalem Day sends out the justice-seeking cry of the oppressed Palestinians against the cruelty of the inhuman, criminal and infanticidal regime of Israel.

America’s self-imagined custodianship of human rights and freedom epitomize problems associated with fake prophesies. That Americans now rally behind the latest battle-cry of the Republic, ‘Make America Great Again’, indicate that they are indifferent to the fact that their country has been barnstorming across the globe these past six decades killing vast numbers of innocent people with the objective of creating a pre-eminently militaristic empire to strategically control the skies, oceans, their market-share plus control of space. In implementing these belligerent objectives, the US has repeatedly unleashed auto-da fes to destroy many countries across the globe who failed to fall in line.

Foremostly, America’s firebrand passage through Muslim countries clearly illustrate how a neophyte culture with racist baggage can implode the nation’s reputation, leaving it bereft of respect and credibility. This now appears to be what is happening in America. The two-tiered (or three) aspect of this enterprise requires closer examination.

It would appear that ‘greatness’ in the American context amounts to nothing more than upholding vulgar white-middle-class racist values as the measure of excellence, with fake ‘principled’ notions of cultural superiority leading the chase. When the dogs-of-war were unleashed to wreak havoc, pillage and plunder on the habitats of millions of hapless people across the globe, the silence of so-called conscionable America was deafening.

Violence had become an American staple and the voice of the Peace Movement is all but mute. It’s now impossible to ignore the fact that the three tiers of state, the top tier, the middle tier and the lower tier…the three classes…collude in a program whose singular use of power expresses an unwavering desire to ride the gravy train to the hilt and devil take the hindmost.

These three classes, battle hardened and indifferent to the chaos caused by their bloodthirsty military have been blindsided by their own government. There is the sense that the flag… the stars-and-strips…has become the nation’s birth certificate and each person’s birth certificate a little bit of a collective ‘stars and stripes’ denouement that entitles them to extrajudicial considerations and the right to be proud of their dubious record. However, finding one’s niche in this hierarchal edifice is another matter altogether.

The Wall Street Journal and the New York Times are missives of choice for the middle class in matters relating to America’s monopolistic capitalist system. Predatory incursions into foreign countries resulting in bloodshed are routinely explained away in false-flag gibberish or in some other fashion to justify the actions of the government. This business of doing business attitude exists to negate everything else and the middle-class appear to have no qualms with this scenario. The sub-text here being, as God’s own people they believe that they have the right to expect ‘mana-from-heaven’ to rain down upon them from all quarters of the globe.

For the working class however, tweeting along with the paymaster appears to be an act of convenience. But when the music stops, as it most certainly will, the birthright question (all men are equal) will inevitable come into contention again when the issue of inequality needs to be confronted. However, the next generation may be more strident should they once again find themselves being herded back into a holding-pen position to await casino-capitalism’s next ‘flurry’ at the roulette table.

But irony of ironies, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal etc. are merely institutions that employ smoke and mirror tactics to conceal the nastiness of a two-tiered (or three) system that entails subjecting the public to a game of musical chairs, whose prime objective is to unseat a competitor each time Wall Street chooses to play its favourite game of ‘pass-the-stock-market-parcel’…the one designed to consolidate wealth in fewer hands each time it is played.

Musical chairs, also known as Trip to Jerusalem, is a game of elimination involving players, chairs, and music, with one fewer chair than players. When the music stops whichever player fails to sit on a chair is eliminated, with a chair then being removed and the process repeated until only one player remains. Alas! The origins of the game are unknown. On the other hand, we may safely assume that Karl Marx or Antonio Gramsci are not its authors.

So, the questions we need to ask here are, have Americans taken to wearing masks to hide their lack of conscience, like their President wears his hairpiece… do their masks, like Donald’s hairpiece, only make an appearance when orchestrating auto-da fes, or when administering sanctions designed to economically incinerate…or starve… apostates?

Or should we defer to another Donald…Donald Rumsfeld…for insights into America’s moral stature. “We don’t know what we don’t know. There are too many unknowns too many factors that we may not have yet considered,” said he. Which, when translated might mean, ‘Life is like a game of musical chairs and America has the right to take occupancy of the limited number of chairs available or our armed forces will be forced to use terror to procure knowable ends that are ultimately unknowable but desirable because they make us feel great.’

Narratives fed to the public by special interest groups come as hybridised versions of Hollywood cypher-speak-gibberish and are passed off as truths to the public for the purpose of indoctrinating them. A continuous repetition of false declamatory statements praising American exceptionality pour from the media to reinforce fake news. If there were a Noble Peace prize for hypocrisy, it would surely go to America.

America, the so-called leader of the so-called free world is awash with fallacious narratives that are put in place by corporate entities to implement a two-tiered (or three) system that strives to gain support in the public domain by using fearmongering tactics to implement its propaganda in every way possible. Fake narratives ceaselessly eat into public consciousness while cleverly concealing their real purpose, which is full spectrum Mafioso dominance. Think of the numerous corporate ploughshares that have insidiously penetrated a country near you!

As we now live in a technological age that has provided humans with the ability to engage in nuclear Armageddon, we can’t help but notice how worse-case scenarios abound. Some even suggest that evolution has run out of steam. Mutually Assured Destruction doctrine (MAD) is a minefield without canaries and we, in the lower tiers, are left painfully aware of our impotence on discovering that we are without a voice in the decision- making process. We are required to seal our lips and accept the reality that nuclear buttons now hang over our heads like the sword of Damocles.

We are constantly reminded that states exist, super and otherwise, their nuclear dogs-of-war straining on the leash in readiness should lines be crossed. We are repeatedly reminded of the fact that it is now possible to cause enormous casualties and destruction to civilian populations anywhere in the world by simply pressing a button from thousands of miles away.

We can no longer feel free because we can no longer free ourselves from the shadow of Dr. Strangelove. The more bloated the military budget becomes, the deeper we sink into gloom upon realizing how our anxiety increases exponentially with increases to the military budget.

Knowing that unknown knowns have consigned us to carceral spaces where modern-day Caesars busy themselves toying with their nuclear buttons, suggests that the middle and working classes have become prisoners in an ill-defined reality. The knowledge that capitalism engenders fear through its ‘security’ narrative has now become the problem. The ideology that keeps capitalism frothing at the mouth has produced its own evil doppelganger…a pedagogic Promethean pariah responsible for global degradation, its power ever more lethal in a world that has learned to fear its score card.

Four in ten Americans sometimes face what economists call “material hardship,” struggling to pay for basic needs such as food and housing, according to a new study from the Urban Institute. Even middle-class families routinely struggle financially and are occasionally unable to pay their bills and more and more ordinary citizen are beginning to feel that they no longer have a part to play in a secular agenda that has become the property of the military establishment.

So, the problem now is that civilians seem unable to deal with facts. A shut-the-fuck-up mentality now exists to banish issues that relate to questions relating to social criteria and the people who write and whistle-blow the inequities of their government. People are relentlessly exposed to facts, but as civilians, are incapable of dealing with them. Facts appear on electronic screens ad nauseam to reveal how citizens have become captive to a static reality that uses fearmongering as a way of castrating public dissent. Facts that indicate that only the elite have skin in the game are everywhere in evidence.

At the Colosseum level…the elite level…the grand referee in the orange hairpiece keeps tweeting dealership gibberish while the classes in the lower tiers are expected to remain on standby to applaud this kind of hubris. Many are amused but few are chosen…unless you are an exponent of the rules of Republican Likud or are Likud Democrats building separation walls to keep Zion in and Allah out, per medium of a nasty game of musical chairs…a la currency wars!

Secondary development is fine, but at what cost to that primary narrative within us that depends on freedom of expression? It is ironic that many of the ‘learned’ amongst us strategically position themselves between the people and the elites, thereby limiting the potential for development within the masses. Traditionally, the policy of our rulers…shepherds… was to herd the ‘sheeple’ into the shepherd’s fold, lest he or she escape the soporific effects of propaganda or holy writ. To our great dismay, most of our teachers to this day do little other that look in the rear-view mirror for inspiration.

Justifications for releasing the ‘Dogs of War’ on civilians who can’t defend themselves are inevitable meaningless. For example, the American-Zionist agenda which manufactures fear for the purpose of manufacturing enemies for the purpose of manufacturing wars, has of itself become a war on truth. Sadly, the reason why investigative reporting became so highly selective is that in the US, truth had lost its place in the established media. The fact of the matter is, white-middle-class Americans respond with pique when confronted with criticism of their values. Sadly, exposing the injustices perpetrated on Muslims, Palestinians or Black People is a matter of little concern…a poignant example of what happens to complacent people when they turn away from the truth.

What William Kristol and Robert Kagan proposed when helping to draft the ‘Project for the New American Century’, was a manufactured narrative that led the average citizen to believe that their security depended on elites who could explain the threats they were exposed to…a win-win solution designed to keep them believing that they needed the protection of elites. And what the elites were telling them was that the military establishment was a bulwark against chaos, and the destruction of their state and the possibility that they might become subservient to non-white people.

The West, having created a bifurcated paradigm called democracy sold it to the public as a vector capable of promoting the verity of good governance. But unfortunately, as all paradigms contain bias, the model in question went to great lengths to conceal the presence of the schism within. An upper tier and a lower tier came into existence, whereby the resolution of conflicts was subject to the veto powers of the upper tier. Soon the upper tier set about training minds in the lower-tier to shepherd the resources of the state in ways that benefited the upper-tier. Sadly, over time, the upper tier became more interested in the subject of fiscal welfare (for themselves) rather than pursuing outcomes that could serve the interests of the entire polity.

The bifurcated concept of democracy as propounded by our learned founding-fathers was from the beginning a sleight of hand operating in deference to proprietorial principles enabling the architects of the system to retain control of their plan by fostering the notion that their vector of choice, democracy, could deliver justice for all.

In the US, a tiny number of people cream off virtually all the wealth. Ever since the first Cold War, the ‘sheeple’ have been led to believe that an external threat to their security existed and that it could only be managed by the ruling elite. Spending money to secure the two-tiered realm would require the creation of a global military force capable of warding off threats to American hegemony.

In recent times, emotions pertaining to loss of kudos led to acrimonious debate within the US. Insisting that the Western alliance would work better if individual members paid a bigger share of the costs involved in maintaining NATO came to the fore. This policing agency, the tip of the economic iceberg that was put in place to secure right-of-passage for US hegemony in the first instance, was now upping the ante…the cost of missiles had increased. To date, the dust may have settled, but the opprobrium (phlegm) released by Emperor continues to rile the ruled.

In middle America…the beltway…the media, academia and the entertainment industry share a quasi-moral narrative which floats like an iceberg in an inland sea. This inland sea has a mirror-like surface which reflects the vanity of its citizenry who need to bathe in the unholy waters of hubris. For the upper and middle classes, focusing on America’s military might enables them to revel in unadulterated vainglory. Hubris within the upper class had reached a point where debasement of human values became the norm. Celebrations of inhouse grandiosity suggesting that inverted middle-class American perspectives had passed their use-by-date.

And as the wealth of the nation continued its rise upwards, the lower tier showed signs that something had become unsustainable. The top-heaviness of the unequal economic order had begun to impact unfavourably on the lower tier. From the anonymity of the sheep-pen, the so-called sheeple people had discovered a flaw in that aphorism which stated, ‘the more things change, the more they stay the same’. They discovered that these perspectives were held by pedagogic Prometheans peering into histories rear-view mirrors. They were teachers who would never experience the thrill that came with grassroot activity or feel passions that could change the course of history.

All members of a Yemeni family were martyred as a Saudi warplane raided their home in al-Raqas neighborhood in central Sana’a.

Witnesses reported the death of a whole family, composed of six members including four children, following an airstrike by the Saudi-led coalition targeting a house in the residential neighborhood of al-Raqas.

Meanwhile, Yemeni Health Ministry announced that more than 30 people were martyred and injured as the coalition targeted residential neighborhood.

Saudi Arabia and a number of its regional allies launched the devastating campaign against Yemen in March 2015.

According to a report by the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project [ACLED], the Saudi-led war has so far claimed the lives of about 56,000 Yemenis.

The war has also taken a heavy toll on the country’s infrastructure, destroying hospitals, schools, and factories. The UN has already said that a record 22.2 million Yemenis are in dire need of food, including 8.4 million threatened by severe hunger. According to the world body, Yemen is suffering from the most severe famine in more than 100 years.

Regardless that people are fasting as the month of Ramadan has not ended yet, at least six civilians, including children, were martyred and dozens of others wounded in multiple airstrikes by a Saudi-led coalition on various neighborhoods of Yemen’s capital, Sana’a.

According to Yemen’s Arabic-language al-Masirah television network, Saudi-led warplanes pounded various parts of the capital on Thursday, killing at least six civilians, four of whom were children from one family, and wounding dozens more.

Medical officials said the death toll could rise due to the intensity of the strikes and the number of those who have been seriously injured. They added that there could be other civilians, dead or wounded, under the rubble.

Most of the strikes targeted residential areas in Sana’a, the officials said.

Warplanes also struck a building of Yemen’s Ministry of Information, al-Masirah added. There were no immediate reports about possible casualties or the extent of the damage caused.

Saudi Arabia and a number of its regional allies launched a devastating campaign against Yemen in March 2015, with the goal of bringing the government of ex-president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi back to power.

According to a December 2018 report by the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project [ACLED], a nonprofit conflict-research organization, the Saudi-led war has claimed the lives of over 60,000 Yemenis since January 2016.

The war has also taken a heavy toll on the country’s infrastructure, destroying hospitals, schools, and factories. The UN said in a report in December 2018 that over 24 million Yemenis were in dire need of humanitarian aid, including 10 million suffering from extreme levels of hunger.

Secretary General of Islamic Jihad Palestinian resistance movement Ziad Nakhale stressed that the ‘great battle’ with the Zionist entity is coming, noting that just few hours had kept the resistance apart from striking Tel Aviv in the latest Israeli aggression on Gaza.

In an interview with Beirut-based Al-Mayadeen TV channel, Nakhale said: “The great battle with the Zionist enemy is certainly coming and the Palestinian resistance is fully ready to this battle.”

“Few hours kept us apart from striking Tel Aviv,” he said, referring to the ceasefire brokered by Egypt in a bid to end the aggression on the besieged enclave.

“Israel targeted civilians in Great March of Return protests intentionally, prompting us to snipe Israeli soldiers.”

“The latest escalation was just a drill with live ammunition in preparation for the great battle.”

Nakhale noted that there are implied agreements between the Palestinian factions to retaliate for any Israeli aggression, revealing that both Islamic Jihad and Hamas resistance movements agreed in Cairo to activate the joint operations room in a bid to hit back at the Zionist attacks.

In this context, the Islamic Jihad’s S.G. thanked Hamas movement’s chief in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar over the full cooperation in confronting the Israeli aggression.

As he praised the relation with Hamas, Nakhale warned that the Zionist entity repeatedly attempts to sue discord between the two resistance movements.

On the Return marches, Nakhale stressed that the border protests will go ahead, warning the Israeli enemy that its way of dealing with Palestinian protesters will determine the nature of the Palestinian resistance reaction towards the occupation.

“Gaza is still the most heated (front) with the Zionist entity,” Nakhale said, praising the courage of Gaza resistance fighters.

On the relation with Iran, Nakhle said the movement had no contact with the Islamic Republic, but stressed that contacts are always ongoing. He added that the Palestinian resistance group holds regular meetings with Hezbollah officials and figures.